Posted on: Monday, February 9, 2004

EDITORIAL
DOE 'troubleshooters' can benefit schools

The "accountability and standards" movement aimed at our public schools has always come as something of a two-edged sword.

One side involves the extra money, training and support needed to get schools up to par and making adequate progress toward a high academic standard.

The other side involves the potential for sanctions, ranging from forcing schools to offer free after-hours tutoring to more dramatic remedies such as complete school restructuring or even outside takeover.

In that light, some may see the decision of the Department of Education to send in "troubleshooting" teams to some 25 underperforming schools as representing the "sanction" side of the equation.

In other words, the schools aren't cutting it so outsiders are brought in to do their work for them.

Now, that may be how it appears, but it's not the reality. In truth, the intervention teams are there not as punishment but to give the struggling schools the extra manpower and expertise they need.

Almost without exception, the 25 schools are from rural or low-income areas with high concentrations of English-as-a-second-language students and other challenges.

They are trying to educate their students to a standard high enough to be acceptable to the best-performing schools in the state. They not only need extra help, they deserve it.

It should be clear that these special teams are not coming in to shove in-place teachers and administrators aside. Rather, they are there to help the existing school staff with the latest technology, techniques and ideas.

The idea is not to close the school down, but to make it succeed.

Clearly, one of the motivations for the creation of the troubleshooting teams is the possibility of more substantive sanctions down the road under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

We have long argued that the No Child law, while well-intentioned, has been flawed both in execution and in funding.

But there can be no question that it has forced the central Department of Education to pay more focused attention to 25 of our most challenged public schools.

For that, we can be grateful.